


What Does Help

by Hagar



Category: Trollhunters (Cartoon)
Genre: Character Study, Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, Family, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-10-12 16:24:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17470952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar
Summary: Ofelia, with Claire away.





	What Does Help

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CenozoicSynapsid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CenozoicSynapsid/gifts).



In the beginning, Claire calls every day. Ofelia is home every night at a regular hour for the first time in her life: with Claire gone the house feels almost unbearably empty, and Ofelia cannot stand the thought of missing Claire’s daily phone call. Javier comments on it, how unusual a behavior this is for Ofelia. He says it gratefully and with relief but Ofelia responds defensively. She doesn’t know why she snaps, but it doesn’t matter: the tension between the two of them is still there when Claire calls, and the next night is the first on which their daughter doesn’t call.

From then on it’s a coin toss whether Claire would call on any given night. Ofelia is still home like clockwork nightly, though it becomes more difficult to do that as time takes them further and further away from the Day of The Eclipse Battle. Everyone - or at least, everyone who is relevant - knows that Ofelia’s daughter was more involved in that day’s happenings than a 16-years-old should’ve been, but that matters less and less as time moves on. Eventually there is a day on which Ofelia is late to return home and when she does, Javier tells her that Claire had called.

First, Ofelia is angry. It’s nonsensical, to be angry, and she knows that. Nevertheless, at first she is angry. Javier takes one look at her then goes to the nursery and takes Enrique in his arms: babies are exceptionally attuned to the mood of the caretakers, and Javier knows that while Ofelia is too angry to refrain from doing many stupid things, she’s not so angry as to deliberately make her baby cry. Ofelia looks at her husband over Enrique’s head then goes back downstairs.

She starts crying as soon as she sits down on the couch. 

“This is all my fault,” she says when - a while later - Javier comes and sits down on the couch next to her.

He replies, “Our daughter was right, you know.”

She doesn’t need to ask him what he means: she remembers well enough on her own Claire snapping back at her, _Not everything revolves around you, Mom!_

She wipes her eyes, and says: “It feels like it is. My fault.”

“That’s because you are a parent, and parents always feel guilty.”

“You got that from a TV show,” she accuses, and he shrugs.

“It’s still true,” he says.

“Do you feel guilty?” she charges.

“You always needed to feel in control of things. I, not so much.”

This time, she manages to hear that it is not an accusation, or a judgment: what her husband says is merely a description of facts. She needs to control things: she knows that about herself. She cannot control what her daughter’s life has become, though; that terrifies her, enough that every little additional loss of control ends in - well, this time, first in her being angry, then in her being tearful.

For a moment, that makes her feel absurdly young, as if she were half her actual age or even less than that. It’s been a while since she was that young; she’s an adult, a mother of two children, now. She ought to know better.

Something of what she thinks must show on her face, because Javier says, matter-of-factly: “That’s not going to help, either.”

She punches his shoulder ineffectually, and he pulls her in for a hug.

“What does help?” she asks.

He replies, “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

The words sit between them for a beat, then she says: “Now that doesn’t help either.”

“Well, we can keep paying her phone bill.” The words are almost casual. She would’ve snapped in reply, but for his arms tightening around her before he said them.

Ofelia rests her head on his shoulder.

Until they figure it out, this will just have to do.


End file.
